1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to information visualization.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional visualization systems provide for the display of large quantities of information. However, as the quantity of visualized items increases, the detail associated with each item is reduced. Conventional visualization systems include, for each item, how much space to give the item. If the user opts to display large items, then a smaller number of items will fit on the screen. Items that don't fit on the screen will be completely invisible. Conversely, if the items are made small, more of them will fit on the screen but less screen space will be available to display information about individual items. Visualizations in which small size items are not differentiated based on their on-screen appearance prevent the user from visually scanning the visualization for patterns. Thus, users of these conventional visualization systems cannot exploit spatial cues to determine which items are close to each other, which items are in which regions and so forth. Thus, systems and methods that provide means for determining semantically expressive fields or portions of information elements for display would be useful.